I was researching animal-assisted therapy and its use of snakes and other reptiles but came upon this article instead:
http://http://www.catholicnewworld.com/archive/cnw2000/0709/anim_0709.htm
It started off discussing how the Grove Animal Ambassador Program brought a variety of animals to a workshop hosted by Catholic Charities. I was really hoping to find more about snakes, and it did discuss them a small bit. However, the article only went into detail about how snakes were something that Alzheimer's patients find interesting as well as others. When the article discussed children with disabilities, it went into more detail about the use of dogs (the most common AAT animal that is used). It did discuss something interesting: dogs can help encourage children that do not speak to start speaking because they want to interact with and communicate with the dog. This definitely makes sense!
Another group discussed was the Canine Companions for Independence, which includes dogs with very special skills to help those with disabilities such as blindness or deafness. The organization provides dogs for free to those who can prove that a dog would benefit the disabled individual and make a difference in their daily lives. I think this is a wonderful concept, considering trained dogs with these particular skills can be hard to afford for some families that already have a number of expenses due to having to meet the specific needs of their child with a disability. With the way things are looking, dogs seem to be the most beneficial animal to use when it comes to AAT...I am still trying my best to find more, though :)
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What interested me about this article was the fact that their intention of use was motivation! The article stated:
ReplyDelete“What we really do is use the animals to motivate the children,” Lind said. “We don’t make the children do anything. We want it to be up to them.”
This falls directly in line with what we have learned as best teaching practices… facilitating an environment where students are responsible for their OWN learning!!!!!! This really jumped at me. And seriously, why couldn’t you have a animal in your room on a regular basis? I wonder if there are students who have this type of therapy written in to their IEP’S?